What badge?" Lukas responded tepidly.
I replied to him without thinking about it.
"The general one or the silver wings! Any of them!"
Lukas' face turned black all of a sudden and his eyes glowed viciously.
N0 v el Next. CoM
"How did you know?"
His quiet sentence brought chills up my spine and I instantly remembered what I just said. I screwed up.
'Oops.'
Looking at the hostility brimming out of him, I pretended to be unaffected and turned a blind eye to his obvious anger.
"Just show him! You know what I mean!"
He didn't move at once and was just staring at me, very suspiciously.
Me and my big mouth!
My fingers pinched my dress uncomfortably and came up with an excuse to escape this predicament.
"It's because of my brother. Okay? He told me."
He was still frowning but he wasn't as murderous as before now. His eyes lingered on me for a while before he showed Z his general badge. Z then let him in.
Now, his suspicious eyes fell on Z again.
"You're a demon."
What? Demon? What demon?
Z grinned wide, not denying it.
"And you're demon-like!"
Lukas smirked in response.
"Heh."
All the while, I was standing at the side, finally glad for being able to breathe again. That was so close...
"Are you reading today?" Z asked.
"Uhh, no. Is Lord Janus here?" And looked up as if I could see the topmost floor.
"Master is not here."
"When will he return?"
Z shrugged his shoulders.
"I don't know. Probably not today. It depends."
"..."
Why is he so unreliable at times?
"Is that so…" I mumbled dejectedly.
There goes my purpose… I was really excited to learn today...
"So are you reading today?" Z repeated.
"No…" I was going to say no, deciding if I should go home or stay for a while. But then, an idea struck my mind. "Well, yeah. Do you have records of the people who lived in Rosenthal?"
"Records…" Z thought for a second and snapped his fingers, "Ah! You want to go to the archive room?"
"So there are? Yes! I want to go!" I quickly replied, grabbing the opportunity.
"Follow me. Not you, though." He motioned to the curious man beside me.
Lukas only raised his brow and looked like he didn't care. He seemed more interested in the surroundings than anything else, to be honest. When we were leaving, my eyes lingered on him for a moment, worried that he would thrash the place down. I mean, this man is unpredictableafter all.
I followed Z obediently and saw him open a door that led to a room filled with stone statues. There are probably less than a hundred, or even more in here. Some of them looked like they were scared as hell, some looked surprised; it was varied. It's mostly statues of men though.
I can't help but feel amazed.
"These statues are incredibly lifelike! It's like they are real people," I breathed as I tried to touch one statue of a horned being I saw.
It's so detailed…
"Oh, they are." Z then replied in nonchalance.
"What?" My head snapped to him and I immediately retracted my hand that was about to touch a statue.
"They were alive once and then they got turned to stone."
His cheerful tone wasn't helping at all. It's like he's just complimenting the weather for being good.
???
He stopped at one statue of a person who appeared to be frightened as hell and smiled.
"They were foolish beings who dared to anger the master. So now they are pieces of fine art! Aren't they beautiful? I'm very proud of it~"
I took a step back away from the statue and most definitely away from the grinning Z.
…
That's one more reason to not get on Janus' bad side.
"It's here."
We finally came to a large room full of sky-high shelves filled with hardbound tomes. It's like the library but smaller. It's still bigger than any rooms I have seen though.
"Who is it? I will get it for you," Z said.
"Thank you. Uhmm… Helen D'Angelo please."
"D'Angelo…"
Z instantly teleports to the other side of the room and stops on one of the shelves, grabs a tome, and then teleports back to me. All in a couple of seconds.
"Here."
I almost dropped it in shock. I still can't get used to this after all.
Clearing my throat, I hugged the somewhat heavy book on my chest.
"Thank you…"
He then pointed to my left, "The reading area is there. If you're done, you can just go back to the first floor."
I blinked at him.
"First floor?"
Are we not on the first floor? We didn't really climb the stairs earlier...
"Yeah. This is the 21st floor. If you want to go back, just open the door where we entered and you'll be directly led back to the first floor," He added, clearly not seeing my dumbfounded expression.Oh, right. It's magic.
"Okay…"
"Are you sure that's all you need?"
I nodded solemnly.
"Yeah…"
"Bye then."
He then flicked his hand and just like that, he disappeared out of thin air.
----**
Mother's tome was surprisingly informative. There were records of her birth, adoption, other legal papers, and information about her, her parents, and her siblings. The tome wasn't filled, per se, but it was very enlightening. All the things that I wanted to know from the start were answered and so it was a fruitful investigation, I may say.
The D'Angelos are not from the Rosenthal empire nor was Helen born here. They were actually a clan from a small kingdom that has long been fallen. Both of her parents were already dead while her other sisters' whereabouts are unknown. They seemed to be in hiding.
As per the rest of the clan, it wasn't mentioned where they were again and only said they are all in hiding as well. So I would assume the possibility of them being alive but remained concealed.
And the reason for that was due to their rare bloodline. Even rarer than the existence of magic itself.
The D'Angelo clan hailed from the Goddess of fertility, wildlife, health, and abundance; Feronia. Her descendants are known to have an abundant life force and deeply resonate with the attributes of the world. It is said that the line of healers and white witches of this world, first came from them.
The book also calls them, the miracle makers.